A Story That Could Be True
If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.
He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by —
you wonder at their calm.
They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a king.”
William Stafford
Once upon a time there was a farmer who had a field at the top of a hill. Every year he grew lush green grass in the field which he cut to use as fodder for his animals. But one year, right on Midsummer’s Eve, all of the grass was eaten down to the nubs on the ground. And it happened the next year and the next after that. On the fourth year, the farmer said to his three sons,
“One of you has to watch the field to protect it from the marauders.”
His oldest son volunteered to watch and he went into the field at the end of the long summer day. He sat in a barn on the hill, the barn where the hay used to be stored, and watched to see who or what would come to eat the grass. At the stroke of midnight, however, the barn began to shake and there was a sound like thunder. The oldest son was so frightened that he ran home and hid under his bed. The next morning, the field had been eaten to the nub.
The next year, the second son agreed to guard the field on Midsummer’s Eve and the same thing happened. At midnight, he heard a sound like thunder and the barn began to tremble and shake as if it would fall down on his head. He was so frightened that he ran home and hid. And on the next morning, the grass had been eaten to the nub.
The next year, the youngest son volunteered to stand guard over the field.
“You stand guard!” his brothers exclaimed, “Why you are good for nothing – a changeling who sits by the fire with his boots in the ashes all the day long. You will be too frightened to guard anything.”
“Maybe,” said Boots (for that was what he was called), “but I’ll try anyway.”
So Boots went to guard the field on Midsummer’s Eve. At midnight, there was a noise like thunder and the barn began to tremble as if it would fall to the ground. Boots just said,
“If this is all that’s going to happen, I can stand it.”
Then the noise became louder, the shaking more violent, but Boots was unmoved. Finally, after it seemed that the barn would surely fall down on his head, the shaking stopped and it became absolutely silent in the field. Then Boots heard the sound of munching. He ran outside and there he saw the biggest, fattest, most beautiful horse that he had ever seen. It was wearing a brass saddle and had brass hooves and in its mouth was a bridle trimmed in brass and both were so shiny that they made the midnight field seem like it was bathed in sunlight. Beside the horse was a suit of brass armor
“Oh,” said Boots, “so it’s you who have been eating my father’s grass. Well, we’ll see about that.”
He took out his tinder box and threw some of the tinder over the horse. At that instant, the horse stopped eating and stood completely still. Boots took the bridle and led the horse to a secret place he knew. Then he went into the barn and slept.
The next morning when he went home, his brothers said, “Well, you obviously didn’t last the night. You were scared out of your wits, weren’t you?”
“No,” Boots replied, “I didn’t hear or see anything.”
“But the grass has been eaten, right?” retorted the brothers.
“Let’s go see,” said Boots.
When they went to the field the grass was growing thick and lush. The brothers went home without a word
.
The next year, Boots watched the field again on Midsummer’s Eve. The same thing happened, only this time, when the noise and shaking subsided and the munching sound began, the horse Boots found was even larger and fatter and more beautiful than the one from the year before. This horse was wearing a silver saddle and bridle that glowed in the moonlight and bathed the field in its silvery light. It had silver hooves and a suit of silver armor lay by its side. Boots threw the tinder from his tinderbox over the horse and easily led it away to where he kept the horse with the brass saddle.
The next morning, his brothers made fun of him.
“It seems you were too scared to guard the field last night, you stupid changling with your boots in the ashes.”
“No,” said Boots, “I did it just like last year.”
And, sure enough, when they went to check, the grass was growing green and lush.
In the third year, the horse Boots found was wearing a golden saddle and bridle and had gold hooves and beside it was a suit of golden armor. This horse, too, he took to his secret place without telling anyone about what had happened.
At about this time, the king of the land announced that he would give half his kingdom and his daughter, the princess, in marriage to any knight who could ride his horse to the top of a steep brass mountain. The brass was enchanted to only allow brass to step on it for the king had decided that he didn’t want any suitors. The princess would sit at the top of the mountain with three golden oranges in her lap. These she would give to the first knight who successfully rode up the slippery slope.
Boots’s brothers were going to try their luck, too, but when Boots asked if he could come, they laughed at him.
“You? What could you do? You’re no good for anything but warming your toes in the ashes!”
On the day of the contest, the fields around the brass mountain were filled with knights and horses from all over the kingdom and from kingdoms beyond, but every knight who tried to ride up the mountain, immediately slipped down before his horse could even take a couple of steps. Then Boots rode up on the brass horse and climbed up that mountain like it was a dirt hill.
Supposedly that meant he got the princess but the king wanted her a lot so the next day everything happened again except it was silver.
And the next day gold.
The next day the king gave up and Boots married the princess and became prince Boots and when the king dide Boots took over the kingdom and was the best king a land could have.
THE END